U-M professor recalls his father, a renowned rocket scientist

"He's the last of the German scientists who started the American rocketry program. With his passing, that brings an era in the U.S. to an end. We've moved on to a new phase."- Werner J.A. Dahm on his father, Werner K. Dahm.

By JO MATHISThe Ann Arbor News

Growing up, Werner J.A. Dahm says science was a favorite topic of conversation in his household.

"We'd routinely look at pictures of shockwaves at the breakfast table, and discuss aerodynamics at dinner," Dahm said.

Werner K. Dahm

He learned from his father, Werner K. Dahm, an internationally recognized rocket science pioneer whose work in Germany and the U.S. contributed to the nation's ballistic missile programs and manned and unmanned rocket programs. The elder Dahm died Thursday in Huntsville, Ala., at the age of 90.

Werner J.A. Dahm is now a professor of aerospace engineering at the University of Michigan. He said Friday that he remembers when his boyhood friends wondered aloud about why the sky is blue or how the wind blows.

In his thick German accent, Werner K. Dahm would pleasantly and patiently explain the physics behind the questions in terms an 8-year-old could grasp.

"My father had an insatiable desire to understand things," said Dahm, an Ann Arbor resident. "If he knew the answer, he loved to try to explain. If not, he would dig in and find out."

Werner Karl Dahm was born and raised in Germany. After graduating from the Beethoven School in Bonn in 1936, he studied aerodynamics and aircraft design at the Technical University in Aachen and later in Munich when the Nazis closed other technical universities.

In Munich, Dahm was one of just four students out of several hundred who refused to join the Nazi student club, his son said. Because of his rebellion, he was denied access to some advanced aircraft courses, so he focused on rocketry, Werner J.A. Dahm said. That ultimately turned out to be a good career choice.

Dahm was drafted into the German army in late 1939 and was assigned to the German rocket development effort at Peenemuende in 1941. As the youngest member of the rocket team, he worked in the future projects division and helped pioneer many experiments.

In August 1943, when Allied forces bombed the facilities, he saved critical wind tunnel data from the ensuing fires.

Facing advancing Russian forces in 1945, he and most of the rocket team moved south to surrender to American forces. After his release a few months later, he and others from the team accepted an invitation to join the U.S. Army's nascent rocket program. He insisted on being allowed to finish his degree, which was officially awarded in mechanical engineering, his son said.

In August 1947, he moved with his German team to the U.S. to begin work on the U.S. rocket program. He was involved in many projects, including Skylab and the Space Shuttle.

The elder Dahm was chief of the Aerophysics Division at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center until 1992, when he became chief aerodynamicist at the NASA Center. He continued working in science at NASA until his retirement in 2006 at the age of 89.

"He's the last of the German scientists who started the American rocketry program," Dahm said. "With his passing, that brings an era in the U.S. to an end. We've moved on to a new phase."